How to setup the SAP Vora developer edition virtual machine

This How-to details the procedure to download, install and verify SAP Vora version 1.4 developer edition packaged as a virtual machine appliance. SAP Vora, developer edition, is covered by the Developer License Agreement, which you will need to accept in order to be able to get access to it.

SAP Vora is a software working in the distributed environment, i.e. the one that usually consists of at least several computing nodes. But in case of the developer edition the SAP Vora software has been modified to allow you to practice with a single node instance.

Refer to the last section of this How-to for most common troubleshooting activities. If solution is not available there, then: - Post a question on SAP Community Answers if you have SAP Community account, - Post a question on Stack Overflow if you have an account there, - Open an internal ticket in SAP Customer Support System using HAN-VO component if you are an SAP employee.

Step 1: Download the OVA File

Sign up for and request the free virtual machine appliance (the .ova file) of SAP Vora 1.4, developer edition from the SAP Store by clicking on Trial Version button on:

Once the product is requested you will receive an e-mail with the link to download an archive file with .ova file in it. The size of an archive file is about 2GB.

Step 2: Install a hypervisor

VMware Workstation Player is a hypervisor compatible with SAP Vora 1.4, developer edition. You can install any other supported hypervisor, like VirtualBox, but examples in this how-to are based on the VMware Workstation Player.

Ensure you are downloading the correct version for your development machine.

Step 3: Import the downloaded OVA file

Open the VMware Workstation Player and in the menu choose Player > File > Open, select the SAP Vora .ova file. Click Open and then Import.

The import process will take a few minutes.

Step 4: Start the virtual machine

Choose Play virtual machine.

VMware Player console takes over control over keyboard and mouse. Ctrl+Alt takes focus away from the console and allows you to work with other applications on the host machine.You can open up to and switch between 6 terminal screens using Ctrl+Alt+F1 (default one) through Ctrl-Alt+F6.

Enter the credentials below when see logon screen.

Field Name

Value

user name

vora

password

VDEVora1

The first time you login as user vora you will be asked to change your password. Make sure you remember the new password.

Please note that the default keyboard layout for this virtual machine is English (US) (qwerty). You may want to adjust it for your layout by starting YaST tool with sudo yast command, and then going to Hardware > System Keyboard Layout.

Step 5: Reset default passwords

For security reasons, you should change the default passwords for root user.

Execute command su to switch to the root user

Type the default password for the root user: VDEVora1

You will be asked to enter and retype the new password for root user

Execute exit, so you’re again acting as a user vora

Step 6: Check SAP Vora services are booted

It takes a few minutes for SAP Vora services to initialize. To check status of initialization execute following commands in that order:

At the end you should see Vora Manager’s Master and Worker services as “running”.

Step 7: Open SAP Vora Manager

You need to know your IP address to connect to Vora services. In the terminal execute the command below:

/sbin/ifconfig eth0

Note the IP address after inet addr:. It is referred to as IP_ADDRESS in the rest of this document.

Start your web browser. Open the Vora Manager at http://IP_ADDRESS:19000, log in with the user admin and the password admin.

Choose the Services tab. You should see that all SAP Vora services have a green check mark, indicating that they have been started and are running correctly.

To check the version of SAP Vora software click on Connection status icon.

You can do users management from SAP Vora Manager, but as well from SAP Vora Tools as described in the next step.

Step 8: User management with SAP Vora Tools

Open the SAP Vora Tools web application from http://IP_ADDRESS:9225

The user is admin and the default password is admin.

Optionally, you can click on User Management icon and edit the user admin to change its default password. Make sure you remember the new password.

Step 9: Enable SSH - optional

Connecting to the VM via SSH is disabled by default due to security reasons. If you want to be able to connect via SSH, you can enable it in the VM by executing the command:

sudo systemctl restart sshd

SSH daemon is not started automatically after the virtual machine is powered off. You need to start it next time your virtual machine is powered on again. Or you can enable it start automatically using the command:

sudo systemctl enable sshd

Make sure you understand the security implication of enabling the SSH service.

Step 10: Install the VMware Tools on guest system - optional

VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine’s guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine. For more information please check official Overview of VMware Tools.

VMware hypervisor may request you to download and install VMware Tools on your host system before the very first use.

The installation process will take a few minutes. It will use default settings with no further user input required. If you want to review the output of installation you can scroll the screen in VMware Workstation Player using Shift+PgUp and Shift+PgDn.

Now you can set a clock synchronization between your host and guest systems. Go to virtual machine settings (Ctrl-D) > Options > VMware Tools and check Synchronize guest time with host option. Click OK.

Step 11: Share the folder from the host system - optional

There is a new directory /mnt/hgfs created as a result of VMware Tools installation in the previous step. HGFS stands for Host-Guest File System.

It is a place to be used for shared folders. Shared folder allows you to exchange files between host and guest operating systems. The below procedure may not work for all combinations of operating systems and virtual machine players. Please refer to the vendor’s documentation for your specific setup.

The developer edition is not meant to be in a productive use case, but still you may want to get important security updates.You can get a registration code from SUSE that is valid for 60 days and use it to get updates.

A text web browser will open. You can navigate with TAB and ENTER. Enter the e-mail you used for registration at http://suse.com and the registration code. With TAB move to “Submit” and hit ENTER.

In the next screen just type “Q”

You will end up in a screen where you can choose which updates you want to install.

Move up and down in the list with the CURSOR keys. Hit SPACE to toggle installation. Move with TAB to “Accept” and hit ENTER to install the chosen updates.

Once done, you can move to “Abort” and leave the update menu.

Step 14: Troubleshooting

My computer freezes when I start up Vora in the VM

Try to lower the used RAM for the VM. If your machine has 8GB and the VM uses 8GB, your machine will run out of resources.In VMware Workstation Player, this setting can only be changed the VM is turned off.

The Vora tools are stuck and I only see the rotating flower

Try using a more modern browser on your host machine.

My mouse can’t escape from the VM

Usually you need to press ALT+CTRL to activate the host mouse again.

The Vora manager doesn’t start, I can’t connect to http://IP_ADDRESS:19000/ site

This might be a network problem. Try removing cache files and restart the engine:

I see an error message about a “native-hadoop library” and my query is failing

If you mean Unable to load native-hadoop library for your platform...using builtin-java classes where applicable your queryfails because of a different reason. You can ignore this message. The library for HDFS can either be written in Java (used in the developer edition) or native (not used in the developer edition). Hadoop is just a little too verbose here.

The Zeppelin paragraphs stay in status pending foreverCheck the logs in /opt/zeppelin/logs. Sometimes it helps to restart Zeppelin with /opt/zeppelin/bin/zeppelin-daemon.sh restart.

My VMware Player’s terminal is not respondingYou can switch to a new terminal with CTRL-ALT-F2. Go back with CTRL-ALT-F1. CTRL-ALT-F1 up to CTRL-ALT-F6 allow you opening up to six terminals.

If solution is not available above - Post a question on SAP Community Answers if you have SAP Community account, - Post a question on Stack Overflow if you have an account there, - Open an internal ticket in SAP Customer Support System using HAN-VO component if you are an SAP employee.

Step 15: SAP Vora documentation

There is also the SAP Vora documentation for SAP Vora product, and not only about the developer edition. This documentation is useful, although not applicable to the developer edition in all cases, as it is targeted to a cluster installation of SAP Vora and not a single-node VM setup.